Sunshine Coast police officer urges drivers to be wary at Palmwoods’ notorious intersections

Drivers ignoring a stop sign at a notoriously dangerous intersection at Palmwoods have been warned against their dangerous behaviour by the town’s top cop.

Drivers ignoring a stop sign at a notoriously dangerous intersection in Palmwoods have been warned against their dangerous behaviour by the town's top cop after it was revealed 200 infringements had been issued in the area in the past year.

A total of 126 speeding offences were detected by officers stationed in the Palmwoods Queensland Police Service division from January 1 to December 31, in 2020.

Seventeen moving traffic offences were noted, 12 unregistered offences, eight drink driving and five disobey road signage.

Sergeant Kevin Crowley warned that the stop signs at the Chevallum Road, Woombye Palmwoods Road and Jubilee Drive intersections should not be ignored.

He said cars turning left from those streets feel like they have good enough vision of oncoming cars to the right, therefore ignoring road rules as they pass the stop signs.

"More often than not that's the crashes that we get reported because they haven't stopped - they've looked but actually haven't seen," Sergeant Crowley said.

"If you're turning right from either of those stop signs (and) if you haven't stopped then you're just not driving well.

"You need to stop."

Sergeant Crowley said the Sunshine Coast road policing unit sit at the offending intersections and 'write one (ticket) after the other'.

The Sunshine Coast Daily spent some time at the Chevallum Road intersection and in just an hour and a half noticed five vehicles failing to stop at the sign.

The warning from Police comes after the Sunshine Coast Daily launched the Pave the Way for Palmwoods campaign to shed light on road conditions in the town.

The Daily sat down with the Palmwoods officer in charge to discuss his experiences in the area.

With the town's population growing exponentially and more development in the pipeline, the Sergeant is worried about the impacts on traffic.

"It (Palmwoods) might have been a good design 50 years ago but it's not good today," he said.

"It's really a poor design for the amount of traffic that we see, there's a lot of potential for crashes.

"With the rate of growth in the town it's just creating a lot more problems."

Margaret Street, Jubilee Drive and Woombye Palmwoods connection Roads. Picture: Patrick Woods.

He's hoping the State Government will act and install traffic calming through the town's main street as well as a reduced speed limit.

But the rail bridge intersection at Chevallum Road, Jubilee Drive and Woombye Palmwoods Road remains a main concern with no solution on the horizon.

"I've been told that nothing significant is going to happen with those intersections until the rail duplication is sorted," Sergeant Crowley said.

"Who knows when that's going to happen, how long is a piece of string?

"I've been here for 10 years and I was told that in year one.

"I've been hearing it for ten years now and I expect I'll be hearing it again the whole time before I finish."

Palmwoods town centre. Picture: Patrick Woods.

The officer says it's not just residents who have experienced near misses in the area.

"I nearly had a crash in my own car there (recently) coming out of Main Street turning right onto Margaret Street opposite the shops," Sergeant Crowley said.

"A car has pulled out of a car park, saw a break in the traffic but didn't take into account me coming out of Main Street and just pulled straight out - that just happens all the time.

"It's a 50 km/h limit through the middle of town here, realistically if you're doing 50 km/h around that bend you're going far too quickly and that's at almost any time of day."